Читать книгу The Mythology of Cherokee, Iroquois, Navajo, Siouan and Zuñi - James Mooney - Страница 40

The Dutch of New York were at one period almost overwhelmed by the Indians in their neighbourhood, and in 1656 the Virginians suffered a severe defeat in a battle with the aborigines at the spot where Richmond now stands. In 1675 there broke out in New England the great Indian war known as King Philip's War. Philip, an Indian chief, complained bitterly that those of his subjects who had been converted to Christianity were withdrawn from his control, and he made vigorous war on the settlers, laying many of their towns in ashes. But victory was with the colonists at the battle called the 'Swamp Fight,' and Philip and his men were scattered.

Captain Benjamin Church it was who first taught the colonists to fight the Indians in their own manner. He moved as stealthily as the savages themselves, and, to avoid an alarm, never allowed an Indian to be shot who could be reached with the hatchet. The Indians who were captured were sold into slavery in the West India Islands, where the hard labour and change of climate were usually instrumental in speedily putting an end to their servitude.

Step by step the Red Man was driven westward until he vanished from the vicinity of the earlier settlements altogether. From that period the history of his conflicts with the whites is bound up with the records of their western extension.